


Point of Origin

by stitchy



Series: Barricade [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, His Last Vow Spoilers, M/M, Oral Sex, Parentlock, Post-His Last Vow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:39:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1275193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stitchy/pseuds/stitchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock and John visit baby Watson in hiding- a sequel to "Barricade".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Point of Origin

**Author's Note:**

> This story does stand alone, more or less- but the setting is *much* informed by the first story in the series, "Barricade".

In the dark the Holmes's red house looked like a wrapped present hidden in the bottom of a closet. It was barely 3 AM when Sherlock pulled the rover up the driveway, and wrestled a duffel out of the backseat before lightly tapping John awake.

“We're here, come inside," he whispered.

He didn't expect anyone to be awake when they arrived, and that was largely the idea. They were in the final act of the Moriarty drama, and there was still a need for precaution when visiting John's daughter in hiding. It had been agreed with Mycroft there were a handful of holidays Sherlock could reasonably wish to spend with his parents without alerting any watchers to the little girl's significance. Traveling in the night reduced their visibility as well, but it made for a rather lonely drive when John passed out in the passenger seat a half hour in.

Sherlock knocked twice on the door before ultimately using the key, so that anyone downstairs wouldn't be too rudely surprised by their entrance. A tiny cry sounded from the next room when they came in the kitchen door. John hadn't been back here since Christmas, and Sherlock was thankful the change in decor kept the setting from being too eerie a reprise. It had been a rather awful day, even for a Christmas- which he usually abhorred. The house was still strung up with garlands when Sherlock had come back less than a month later- Mummy had been in too much of a rush to take them down while she prepared for his request. John had been taken off his feet by an incident with one of Mary's former employers, and wasn't able to see his daughter out of London. Truthfully, he was lucky to even hold her the day she was born. Sherlock himself had been the one to deliver baby Robin from the safe-house where she was born to the Holmes abode. He stayed the first night, standing over her crib in quiet awe. She'd been set up in what had once been Mycroft's childhood room, recently repainted a soft green and filled with a changing table and rocking chair. Sherlock's own room had been left more or less untouched, only the inheriting a larger double bed, and absorbing Mycroft's encyclopedias in next to his own volumes.

To the tiny girl everything was new and unsettling, but it must have exhausted her even more than it did Sherlock because she slept for hours while he stood thinking. He worried about Moriarty's discovery of her existence. He worried over her mother's decision to take her chances with her enemies, rather than live under controlled protection with access to Robin. He worried that John would torment himself over the separation from his child- or over the fact that it came as such a relief. This arrangement was perfect for the moment, or it could be perfect indefinitely.

Now Robin was almost three months old, and it was time to consider how she might or might not integrate into life at Baker Street. Her little voice could be calling out for comfort in the night and they could be the ones answering instead. Sherlock's father came in to the kitchen to greet them, baby tucked to his shoulder.

"Ah, you're here. Someone must have overheard you were coming tonight because she insisted on staying up to welcome you," said Dad, who clucked in mock reproach.

"Thank you for having us. Thank you for everything, really, Mr. Holmes. It's unbelievable-" started John before Sherlock's father sighed in a strikingly familiar way.

"You know we're happy to help, John. Do you want to hold her? I bet if you gave her the rest of this bottle she'll go down."

John hadn’t even taken off his coat yet, and Sherlock noticed him master a fleeting panic that crossed his face and when Dad held out his arms. He carefully reached out to cradle her in his own. Her tiny head didn't wobble like a newborn, anymore. Her neck was strong enough to support it now, and soon her improved coordination would turn into troublesome antics. She stared back into his face, fascinated.

"You boys mind if I turn in? She's been spoiling me doing six or seven hours of sleep lately, except for tonight. I'm knackered." Sherlock bid his father good night and dropped their luggage next to a chair before peeling his coat and flopping on the couch. John settled down with her by his feet, and Sherlock watched them cooing and feeding. It filled him with a furious affection that was near paralyzing, but he wasn’t quite sure what to call it. What to call _them_.

"She's changed so much since the last time I saw her," John said. His voice strained with something that sounded like disappointment. "You're getting so big, Robin. Are you trying to outgrow me? I admit I haven't set a very tall bar. Might need to see Sherlock 'bout that."

"You never outgrow your daddy," Sherlock said.

"Sherlock, you ought to hold her," John smiled. He sat up to gather her against him for a few minutes, before sinking back down so she rested on his chest. Robin was shut eyed, now. Sherlock watched her breathe, in and out, with an anatomical perfection adults somehow forget. Somewhere between now and then she'd develop all the sloppy habits that would individualize her and make her a product of her surroundings.

"We should go up. You're both about to drop off," Sherlock noted. John scooped a hand between the back of the couch and Sherlock's side, giving a squeeze with his laugh.

"Imagine the nerve of it Robin, Sherlock Holmes telling anyone it's bedtime." He looked around and gathered their things from the floor before nodding toward the stairs and beginning his ascent. Sherlock followed close behind with the baby, hitting the light on his way up.

She didn't need a change, and was already dressed in pajamas, so Sherlock offered up Robin's tiny head to John, who brushed it with a kiss before settling her down in her crib. When he looked around the nursery he noticed there was a small nightlight now, and a dresser that hadn't been coordinated in time for her initial arrival. A practical waste basket was placed beside the changing table, and over which hung a new framed picture. It was a photograph of the wedding party- nearly a lifetime ago. How astute that her nursery would have a portrait taken by an attempted murderer hanging in it, Sherlock thought. He was momentarily disappointed there wasn't a better, bigger picture of John for her here, when there was an embarrassing array of snapshots from his own awkward youth in every corner of the living room. His father had been a bit of a shutterbug, he could only imagine the nuisance he'd have been in the 1980's if there were digital cameras and social media.

John turned to him, a small and weary smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. Sherlock allowed himself to pull closer and draw him in for a kiss. A quiet whimper signalled John's half surprise- it was exceedingly rare for them to share any affection outside of Baker Street. They were still so careful. It seemed better to play their cards close to their chest publicly, while Moriarty still lingered. It wasn't every day a master criminal of the first order had a personal vendetta against you, thankfully- but it being true the past few months was enough. John sighed against him before stepping back and sagging his knees a bit.

"Where can I park?"

"My room, across the hall." He picked up their things and lead the way, turning on a bedside light, and digging out his phone charger before finally leaning down to where John was seated at the edge of the bed.

"I'll be up yet," he said, before dropping another kiss to John's lips, "Good night."

John hesitated replying, "Uh, right. Okay. Good night."

Sherlock went back into Robin's room after he left John, and took a seat in the rocking chair to check for any new emails on his mobile. There were several tiresome reminders from his brother, four clients with cases too dull to dignify with response, and two with problems just interesting enough to solve with a well worded google inquiry and referral to the proper services. At least Molly had forwarded him an interesting article on the latest CDC guidelines for antimicrobial pesticides. He listened to the hush of Robin sleeping, and ‘tidied’ his mind palace a bit- a phrasing that always exasperated John, who would much prefer an actual vacuuming of the real flat, once in a while. About three hours into his guard keeping his mother peeked into the room.

"Glad you got in all right, dear. Have you slept at all?" She was still in her dressing gown, but her hair and makeup was already made for the day. It was unlike her to be up quite this early, by the alarm he'd heard fourteen minutes earlier. Mummy preferred to wake naturally. They must be attending a sunrise Easter Mass.

"Been busy," he shrugged. She looked to the crib with a knowing nod.

"She's beautiful."

"She is."

"I'm glad there was something you felt you could ask us for help with, Sherlock.  Something this important to you," she said kindly. Sherlock knew there wasn't any accusation in the comment, but he couldn't help the bitter feeling of shame that crept in. There had been so many struggles he'd insisted on shouldering alone while Mummy had nearly begged to come to his aid.

"Thank you for saying 'yes'," he mumbled.

"You too," she quipped, and with that she bustled out of the room again.

He sat listening to the creaks and clatter of household routine, mapping out the activity of its participants like he used to as child. He'd begun to train himself in the language of footfalls and flicked switches in this house. There were some different reverberations nowadays, but the underscore was familiar. This was his origin story, but now there was another volume.

Sherlock crept across the hall and into his room silently. He remembered when he was young, how it had been a treasure trove to him. His favorite books crammed into fortified walls that surrounded his collections and specimens. There were still several shadow boxes full of winged insects that had survived his changing tastes, a display of knot types, and a shelf full of rock samples. They all paled in comparison now, in the midst of the man who slumbered in the bed. Sherlock shed his buttondown and pulled back the quilt to slip under the covers with him. He burrowed his face into John's neck and insinuated a knee between his legs, until the sharp, deep inhale of John's waking pressed their chests together. Watching John wake up had a way of breathing refreshment into Sherlock that actual rest never seemed to match.

“You should make coffee.”

“I don't want coffee. Sleeping.” John seemed resolute about not opening his eyes, so Sherlock pressed his cheek to John's neck and dragged his eyelashes across the sensitive skin. Tickled, he opened his eyes and snaked a retaliatory hand to a soft spot at Sherlock's side.

“I'll rephrase. You should make _me_ coffee.”

“Mmm. If you're tired you ought to have slept, love.”

“I've been watching her.”

John chuckled. "Here I was thinking you'd gallantly taken the couch since you haven't told your parents yet.”

Sherlock hadn't even considered that John might have felt snubbed the previous night, but he recalled John's unusually sheepish 'Good night'. At home they'd been sharing a bed most nights, if Sherlock slept at all. Sometimes even when he didn't plan on sleeping, John might ambush him, run him ragged with a shag, and pin him in with blankets until he gave into the chemical lull.

"They've gone out now, but I'll tell them first thing if it's important to you."

"I just don't think there's any harm in them knowing. Maybe they have the most right to know, with Robin." Sherlock had noticed, not for the first time, that John never said 'my daughter','your daughter', or 'our daughter' since they had finally taken the step of admitting what they were to each other. It hadn't been much of a bother in London, but now with the three of them on the scene he was beginning to notice himself noticing. John had conceded to name her Robin Holmes, but was it simply what was feasible while they created a cover, or was it truly familial?

"All right. What would you like to say we are?" asked Sherlock.

"Oh, god, yeah if I leave you to your devices you might say we 'run the gamut of emotional and sexual intimacy in a monogamous agreement' or something mortifying like that," John joked.

"For all my social gracelessness, John, I'll have you know I have never and would never discuss my sex life with my parents." The idea!

"Yeah, not actually surprised by that, on second thought," John gave Sherlock an apologetic squeeze.

"Mummy just assumed whatever she assumed when I never brought any girls home."

"Just say that we're a couple, short and sweet," John suggested.

"Only half short and definitely not sweet." Sherlock curled a lip, aghast at his own joke. John rolled their sleepy embrace until their positions reversed and pressed his lips to Sherlock's sneer.

"Never had anyone up in this room then?" he asked in a low growl. Sherlock arched beneath him at the sound.

"You know my limited history, no."

"Would you like to?" John's eyes gave a devilish glint as his hands drifted and he hooked his thumbs into Sherlock's trousers.

"Oh, was there someone you had in mind?" Sherlock teased and wriggled his hips firmly into the grasp.

"Had you on my mind," John muttered, nosing his way under Sherlock's chin. With a mouth that was still hot and slightly sleep-sour he sucked little bites down Sherlock's windpipe. For every inch John traveled down his neck he pulled his trousers the same distance, barely pausing to unbutton. When his tongue had found its way to the little dip below breastbone, Sherlock's half hard cock sprang free. He scrambled to push down his clothes the rest of the way before viciously relieving John of his sleep shirt. With their faces level for the moment, John kissed him again in a way that was decidedly filthy. It was the kind of lip locking, panting, tongue filled activity parents of the world were trying to discourage when they told teenagers to leave their bedroom doors open.

"If I'd had you up in my room I might never have made it to London," Sherlock told him when they broke apart. John licked his lips and looked rather smug as he returned to the pale expanse of flesh below him.

"Tell me what it would have been like, if I'd been here," instructed John. "If we'd met in secondary, and I invited myself over when I knew your parents were away."

Sherlock's eyes widened. John had taken care over the course of the past few months to reintroduce him to intimacy. He always offered and asked before they crossed new territories, affronted that others along the way had been careless with the opportunity. The idea of rewriting his first fumbles with the one person he trusted to improve every discovery (in and out of bed) was impossible to refuse. He looked down at John, who kneeled between his legs wearing only pants and a smirk, and tried to extrapolate backwards. Younger, less battle scarred, likely with longer hair and tanner skin. Sherlock wondered if he would have wanted him as instantly at 16 as he had at 36.

"You would have made some excuse- tutoring, maybe. Maths? No...Biology," he grinned. "You would have enjoyed the innuendo."

"I'd have to be a clever flirt, if I was trying to get your attention, git. Maybe we'd quiz each other on muscle groups," mused John, sinking to his elbows on either side of his body. He dipped to a beauty mark he always seemed to favour and darted his tongue at it. "Serratus Anterior?"

"External Oblique," Sherlock recited, as John made his way down his torso, "Rectus Abdominus," - to groin.

"Rectus Femoris," John mouthed against the crease of leg and body. Sherlock was now fully hard, his untouched cock twitching just an inch from cheek.

"You'd know I was...shy. You'd make the first move."

On cue, John took him in hand, dragging a sloppy line from his hip, up the side of his cock to the head. Sherlock gasped, and imagined the slide of tongue and lips swallowing him like it was the first time. The firm pressure of fingers, some wrapped around his length, others clutching at his thigh grounded him in the fantasy.

"Your mouth on me would be the first, and you'd know it. I'd tremble with every pass of your lips over unmarked skin,” he shuddered. “I'd want you to leave traces of yourself. That I could still see later.”

John's head moved in easy rhythm to his words, periodically humming assent and nearly tipping Sherlock into climax with the vibration. The hand on his thigh swept down and up again in a caress of encouragement. He felt his hips rise into the action without his bidding, begging for more contact, and he sputtered, "Please."

John pulled off momentarily, and tongued his way lower, "Please what? Then what might I do?" Sherlock admired that he somehow made the question sound young and innocent, despite having buried his face in coarse pubic hair while he lapped at testicle and then perineum. Hot wet muscle finally stabbed at his entrance.

"Fingers. Please," Sherlock bit out. The hand that had been lazily tracing his thigh traveled up his body with spidering fingers. John offered him his index, pointing it delicately against Sherlock's bottom lip, while he mirrored the effect with the leaking head of his cock against his own mouth. Sherlock invited it in, sucking the digit, surrounding it with his own wetness while John matched with vigor. When he panted again, "please please," John pulled his hand away and brought it to press against his hole, the combined slick of both their saliva somewhat easing the way. He pushed in to the knuckle and continued to pump steadily with his mouth and other hand.

"John," he moaned, "I wish you’d been the only hands I’d have ever had on me. In me. Only one. but you _are_ the only hands I've ever- god!" he cried, when bent finger repeatedly nudged nerve inside him. He felt a tightening, a euphoric potential, and came as he sobbed, "- loved."

John swallowed him, draining him to the last but never lingering past the point of oversensitivity that so upset Sherlock. He released him and crawled back up his body, planting a kiss that tanged of sweat and his own emission. Sherlock limply pulled at his backside, beginning to pry into his pants.

“You don't have to do that. I'm not keeping score,” John reminded him. Sherlock allowed himself to collapse, limbs tossed out in every direction. He'd been ambushed again, he now realized. He thought he was being the clever one, inciting John into making coffee. John pressed a tender kiss to his forehead, as he often did when he managed to get Sherlock in this placid state- he’d hardly suffer it otherwise. "Love you," he murmured, before heaving himself off the bed. "I'm in desperate need of a wash if we're doing dinner with your parents. You rest."

"Mummy's doing a lamb roast,” Sherlock called after him blearily. John stooped to pull a fresh change of clothes from their bag and chuckled.

“All these people keep trying to kidnap me with force, but if someone offered me a lamb roast I would come willingly.”

“I’ll never tell anyone your weakness,” Sherlock yawned.

Some time later, he pulled himself out of an empty bed, dressed, and went downstairs to the kitchen. John was up with Robin for a feeding while Mummy looked on. He was beaming at his daughter with her bottle, while Mummy recounted the mass they'd attended.

“-and of course all the little old ladies whose olfactory senses are so far gone they haven't a clue how much perfume they've piled on. I hope someone has the sense to hide my perfumes from me before I get that old, please.” Dad laughed into his tea.

Sherlock climbed into the chair nearest John at the kitchen table, and sat with his feet tucked up under him, away from the cold stone floor. His limbs didn't fold into the seat like they used to and he felt childish, but the muscle memory was difficult to trump.

“G'morning,” John greeted.

“John and I are a couple,” Sherlock announced dutifully.

“Of course you are, you have a baby,” said Mummy with some exasperation. “Even your father sorted that one out.”

John made a bit of a soppy grin, so Sherlock bumped him a friendly shoulder and dropped his head next to Robin’s to give her a half sniff half kiss. Babies really did smell lovely. For their own protection, evolutionarily speaking.

Mummy smiled and slid a plate of vaguely rabbit shaped pancakes in front of him with a “Happy Easter, dear.”

“You too.” He prodded at his breakfast until his mother reprimanded him that he ought to set a better example for impressionable babies. He bit an ear off a rabbit pancake with exaggerated malice. “Mummy, do you know where my old toy is? I'd like Robin to have it.” She gave him a blank look. “The toy, the stuffed toy I used to have.”

“Which toy?”

“The rabbit.”

“I'm sorry darling I can't remember. Maybe if you say the name,” she smirked.

He grumbled something like _hmmmbunny_.

“I'm sorry I cant hear you.” She shot John a dramatic frown and he chuckled, the traitor.

“Honeybunny! Okay? It was Honeybunny.” Sherlock crossed his arms and rolled his eyes.

“I think she's in The Brig.”

“Really? All right.” He hadn't poked around anywhere other than his old room on his infrequent visits over the past ten years.

John interrupted- “The Brig?”

“The upstairs closet with the slatted door. Sherlock liked to play pirate,” Mummy added.

John was utterly charmed, and turned to him with a unhidden glee. “You pirated with your stuffed rabbit?”

“Occasionally,” he admitted.

“Named Honeybunny?” John lost his composure and Robin objected to the interruption of her feeding with a squawk. ”I'm sorry I just wouldn't have imagined you dragging around a floppy little bunny in a million years.”

“I'd wager most children of a loosely Christian household have had a stuffed rabbit at some point. Easter baskets?” Sherlock attempted to be matter of fact in his explanation, but it was ruined by his own mime of squishing a soft toy.

“You kept yours.”

“Mummy wouldn't let me throw it out.”

“And you want to give it to your daughter. It's sweet.”

“I-,” Sherlock was caught out by his surprise. Your Daughter. Sherlock had never claimed it, and John had never said it, until he declared it just now to the the family. “I do.”

“It’s nice to hear about you as a kid, I always sort of assumed you hatched one day at a crime scene.”

“Well, he _was_ born in a stolen car,” revealed Mummy.

Daddy chimed in immediately, “It was the neighbor’s- we had a flat.”

“They didn’t mind-” scowled Mummy.

“Much.”

John jostled Robin, “See, you come from a long line of insane persons.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

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> art by me, Stitchlock on tumblr!


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